Ribcage permanantly pushed up and expanded-check.
Hips permanantly wider-check.
Tummy permanantly convex due to muscle tears and skin stretching-check.
Teetas back to normal (were hard as rocks during pregnancy and breastfeeding).
24 hour heartburn for nine months straight (which more than made up for complete lack of morning sickness)-check.
My center of gravity seemed to change during both of my full-term pregnancies and has never quite been the same; I don’t walk the same as I did before having babies.
After having my first child I was determined to learn as much as possible about the whole pregnancy/birth process. A friend of mine bought me a copy of Spiritual Midwifery and since I was in bed for six months I had lots of time to study it. When it came time for those babies to come out I was psyched… had a painless birth even with a two inch tear and a footling breech.
Oh, one more thing… I had broken capillaries all over my body for a few days after labor, was told it had something to do with pushing so hard. Anyone else experience that?
After my first labor, both my daughter and I had broken capillaries in our eyes.
Oh, and those of you who are comparing head sizes, those are centimeters, not inches. (Dear God, the thought of a 14 inch head!) My son came through with a 14.5 cm head plus an arm (compound presentation-he came out waving.) Can you say 3rd degree tear?
Well, when I first felt Cranky Jr move, I felt like a carp was in my guts, slowly flopping around. Not that I’ve ever had a carp in my gut, but I just know that if I did, this is exactly what it would feel like.
I can’t remember how I described the later movements.
BTW, my friends named their daughter Marlee. She’s the cutest 3-yr old you ever saw.
jarbaby, a big head might just earn you a c-section. That’s what Cranky Jr gave me, not just because of head size though, but also because he wasn’t presenting right. The head has to crammed against your cervix at the right angle to help crank it open far enough. If not, sometimes you just can’t get him through. It’s like when you’re trying to pull a tight turtleneck over your own head–some ways, it won’t fit. Anyway Cranky Jr’s head was in 95th percentile. The kid looks like a lollipop to this day. Skinny little body, freakishly big head. He’s got a little face and a big back portion, so he looks like Brain from Pinky & the Brain. We love him anyway, of course.
Can you say heartburn? Almost constant esophageal reflux, the price of a 10 pound baby. I was surprised when I read, during my pregnancy, about your organs heading north, but then I thought about it—only so much room, growing baby…where did I think my vital organs were? My hips widened a little and strangely, my voice changed a little.
What I learned last semester–the Dr. putting in a epidermal or intratheal cath for pain control, in the small of a woman’s back, will hesitiate when s/he sees a tattoo. The anesthesiologist said he didn’t like going through pigmented skin and chance driving any of those cells into her spinal column and risking meningitis. He went in higher up, but didn’t feel as confident.
Tattoo on small of back = bad idea, analgesic-wise.
Is it possible to request a c-section for a first baby? I’m not pregnant yet, and probably won’t be for five or six years, but reading about the pain of labor, and about episiotomies/tearing makes me want a c-section. Can a pregnant woman tell her doctor that she doesn’t even want to try labor and ask to schedule a c-section? Can she demand a c-section if the doctor says no?
Elective c-sections (like the kind you’re thinking of) are a bit of a controversy right now. (There was a thread here, started by me, a few months ago about the rise of them in South America)
There is an article about the controversy in the U.S. here
I suspect that the simple answer to your last 2 questions is “depends on where you live and who your health care provider is” (I’m also not aware of what insurance coverage there is in regards to elective c-sections…perhaps someone with more knowledge could provide that info.)
I would note that lots of women don’t have episiotomies/tearing during delivery, and there are pro-active steps that can be taken to minimize or eliminate that happening.
I would also note, that, in terms of pain, the recovery time (and post partum pain) for c-sections (in general) tends to be quite longer than the recovery time for vaginal deliveries
I would hope, that as part of your decision making process, you might talk to women who have had positive vaginal birth experiences…All births are different, of course, and part of the equation is the preparation and mindset of the woman (and partner) as they labor and deliver.
I’ll concur - It’s hard not to be frightened by endless hours of labor type stories and such. But the reality is: every delivery is different!
I have three children and each delivery was quite different.
first child was what’s known as occipital transverse, which means he wasn’t turned the right way and due to the skill of my OB/GYN and the cooperation of my baby I was able to have him vaginally (it was one of those "if the baby doesn’t come out in this next push, we’re doing a C-section’)
Because he was turned around, labor took 14 hours.
Second child - four hours from start to finish. Hurt like hell, but it was over quickly.
Third child had to do things her own way. She had experienced an intraventricular hemorrhage and two weeks later decided that it would be better to born now than wait the other 7 weeks. I went into labor, efforts to stop it failed and an ultrasound revealed a hydrocephalus. To make a long story short, she has motor delays, but is otherwise a beautiful, amazing, intelligent, feisty 3 1/2 year old with red hair.
If you want children - pregnancy, labor and delivery will be worth it. It’s a small price to pay for the most wonderful joy I have ever experienced.
First of all–one of the funnest things about pregnancy is playing “what’s that lump” on the outside of the swelling belly. Also, “guess which side the bellybutton is on right now.” My sister had a kind of “baby football” game, in which she slumped on the couch, placed a half-full glass of water on her belly, and we could take bets on which “goal” it would arrive at first. Good fun. The baby hiccups are fun, too…I had lots of those.
I happened to have a cantaloupe-sized fibroid right at the bottom, so 8’13" baby and all organs were pushed up. Ribcage spread, check. Constant heartburn, check. Stomach capacity reduced by maybe 80%, check. (I actually watched my butt get SMALLER.) Trying to sleep on side but flipping over like a @#$% weeble, check. Scheduled C-section with no labor, check.
But THEN…looooong recovery after massive blood loss from C-section, check. Showing up at friend’s baby shower 4 weeks after delivery still looking white as a sheet, check. Noticing that friend (who delivered after 16 hrs labor 3 months after me) recovered in one day and went shopping at the mall with her mother, hmm…
Ariadne, do yourself a favor. Take the epidural, put up with a day of nastiness, and skip the 3 month recovery period from the c-section. If you don’t need one, I certainly do NOT recommend it. Plus, surgery is riskier for both Mom & Baby. Besides…women have been doing this for eons! You can too!
…besides, you want to threated the kid later with “I went through X hours of labor for you!! And this is the way you thank me???” It worked for my mom, and now I can’t use it. “I got a flabby belly for you” just doesn’t carry quite the same heft.
I’ll chime in here and back up Theobroma’s advice, though, as a natural childbirth educator, I have to also advise you to skip the epidural if you can.
There are sooo many things you can do to make your labor less difficult and less painful. Some are very simple, e.g. walking during labor, (rather than climbing right into bed as if you were a medical patient) which reduces the length of labor by an average of 28%. Some require more practice, such as the relaxation techniques I teach my students.
I have had four deliveries, all without so much as an aspirin. The only part that I found truly, excrutiatingly, painful, was when my son’s head-plus-arm tore through me. (Normally, you don’t feel a tear, as the even pressure across your perineum numbs the tissue.) Otherwise, while I felt that what I was doing was very difficult, and was very hard work, it was not painful, per se. However, during our car rides to the hospital, I would sometimes be unable to prevent myself from tensing up my abdominal muscles while we went around a corner, or something. That hurt! I realized that if I had not learned how to relax the muscles I had control over, and let my body do its thing unhindered, if I had followed my instinct and tensed in response, I would have been in serious pain. I do understand why women ask for pain relief. But I also know that often it isn’t necessary.
Personally, I would never give up the wonderful experience of birthing my children. I would never have wanted to be numbed and separated from what I was doing. Childbirth is beautiful. It is not something to be afraid of. We were born to do it.
Without turning this into an epidural debate…our experience mirrors that of robinh’s.
Although all births and deliveries are different, it often IS possible to progress through labor without epidural or narcotics. mrs beagledave did so…she looked pretty good 5 minutes after.
I just add this to suggest that they are several options for pain and discomfort control…not to necessarily form opinions about those who choose an epidural.
Yeah, everything gets all moved around. And your belly feels freaking weird immediately afterward. Squooshy, like wet bread dough.
First kid didn’t move much. Kinda weird. But I didn’t have any real trouble delivering her (I did need pitocyn, though–labor was really slow).
Second kid–Dear Goddess, she moved from conception, and hasn’t stopped since–and she’s four years old. She used to get the hiccups bad while I was pregnant with her. Shook so hard other people could see it.
Third kid–much like second kid. He didn’t get hiccups so bad, but man, he was a kicker. Left me breathless a few times. Ow, ow, ow. I had a few problems during that pregnancy, but really minor stuff that went away pretty fast. Sciatica during the second trimester, and my hips joints got WAY looser during the last trimester than they ever did during the first two pregnancies. Walking was an adventure. Oh, and did I mention that my a** became an entity unto itself? Huge. Just freaking huge. So big that when I asked my husband if my a** had gotten any bigger, he risked his own life by actually saying yes. He did back it up though, by saying “But that’s okay, honey–you’re pregnant, and everything is supposed to get bigger.”
I think he gave me some food or something after that, to placate me.
Yeah, it gets crowded in there. But I found out real quick that the more active I was on a daily basis, the better I felt overall. Walked alot, and did a few exercises every day. I spent the first 12 hours of my 21 hour labor on my feet, walking around the hospital. Little Deejinator was born in February, in Minnesota. It was frigid cold, way below zero, and snowing to beat hell. We live 30 miles away from the hospital over unpaved country roads. I called when I first started feeling things happen and they told me to get there as soon as the sun came up and the snowplows went through, and we stayed for the duration rather than make the drive another two times.
Don’t say “OMG!!! 21 hours in labor??? Not me!!” The 21 hours started from when I felt the very first little twinges up to the moment of delivery. The very worst part was the last 40 minutes. I’ve had worse menstrual cramps (and still do, sometimes) up until that point.
And I’m a super wimp with a very low pain threshold. If I can do it and not go into hysterics from the pain, anyone can.
To be honest, the main reason I didn’t have a baby in my 20s was my terror about childbirth. Now 30, I have a 2 month old son, and compared to what I expected, it was a piece of cake.
My pregnancy was great – not a bit of morning sickness, and food just tasted so GOOD! I barely even looked pregnant, and except for the constant heartburn, lower back pain and puffy ankles, I felt pretty good. It was no worse than my monthly PMS. And his little hiccups and wiggles inside me were the best feeling ever.
When my water broke, I kept waiting for the horrible contractions to start. By the time I got to the hospital, the fetal monitors indicated they were three minutes apart. I was thinking, “This is it? What’s all the fuss about?” I’ve had worse menstrual cramps before. (And I am a HUGE baby about pain.) After about 7 hours, it started hurting kind of bad for about an hour, and then I had an epidural and everything felt fine, except for it felt like my butt was asleep. (weird feeling)
Ultimately, I had a 16 hour labor, including 4+ hours of pushing and a second dose of the epidural stuff because the first one wore off. At the end, when my Binken One finally emerged, the doctor discovered that the umbilical cord, normally 18-24" long, was only 6" and had been acting like a little bungee cord, pulling him back up every time I pushed. She had to physically PULL him out and I ended up with about a zillion stitches. Recovery was about 3 days; it just felt like a big bruise.
I’d do it again in a second. Don’t let the horror stories scare you.
At the risk of being redundant: anyone out there considering having a baby would do well to become educated as to all the different things you can do during delivery, from doulas to family birthing rooms, to tubs to whatever. And then, think about what you’d want to do but be flexible in case the unexpected arises.
By knowing the options, I think you’re in a much better position to decide what’s best for you, because everyone is individual (and every delivery is different, too). You will have to be an advocate for what you want, and make sure anyone accompanying you knows your desires as well.
With my third, because we were very concerned (she was premature with hydrocephalus) I felt that I didn’t want her to get any negative vibes from me, so I asked for a low dose of demerol. That was given to me at about 2am and she delievered at 7:45 am. I didn’t want to be numbed from the pain, but I did want to feel a little disoriented so that I wouldn’t be hyperfocused on what was going on. So, that worked just fine - I could feel everything, but I wasn’t anxious (at least not physically).
I have an idea about how to explain how the baby feels inside. Take your index finger, stick it in your mouth and rub it very lightly on the inside of your cheek. (Better if you do not have long fingernails.) Now try to imagine that feeling inside your belly and try to imagine it’s not your finger. That’s kinda how it feels at the beginning, right after what I call the “butterfly phase” (which feels rather like gas). Later, it really does feel as if there’s something with its own mind in there. If you have a cat, set it on your belly and observe the sensations of its settling down - that’s kinda similar, too, only inside out.
Heartburn, check. I had hyperemesis too, which was just plain nasty, but would have been avoidable had I known the important thing is not to let yourself get dehydrated. On the plus side, I grew TONS of hair (on my head, long fingernails, and some boobs, too, which were a nice surprise. Biggest surprise was the snot. I swear I spent the last three months with a cold. It turns out your body can’t tell one mucous membrane from another, and you will need a lot of slippery stuff to help lubricate the baby’s way out. My OB/GYN’s very helpful comment here was “well, just in case you have to deliver nasally…” :eek:
Yes, it’s best to go without medication if you can during labor, but I’ll tell you this right now–don’t let anyone bully you out of getting it if you need it. I planned the whole natural thing right from the start, but after a few hours of intense labor, I was glad to accept when they offered me Demerol. That was about as effective for my pain as spitting to put out a campfire. I had strongly desired to avoid an epidural, but after SEVERAL hours of pain in which I would drop off between contractions(exhaustion+Demerol) only to wake up at the peak of the next one, I was begging for that epidural. I got it and it was a tremendous relief. I was able to sleep–which I desperately needed–and since I had to have the C-section after all, it was easy to give me the full block that I had to have to remain awake during my daughter’s birth. I was induced for my second labor with a different drug than Pitocin (I don’t know how to spell the name of it), then after a while they said that my labor wasn’t progressing and that I could try the Pit and have the epidural. There was NO WAY that I could have stood the pain of augmented contractions so I took the epidural. Another C-section followed a few hours later. This time, as I’ve said before, it’s straight to the operating table for me!
Every labor is different, so you may not need the meds at all. I hope for all you other expectant moms, that this is the case. But don’t let propaganda and/or well-meaning friends(or nurses, doulas, etc.) make you feel as if you’re cheating or doing harm to the baby if you need to have something. It’s hard work and you do what you have to to get the job done! And best wishes to you all!!!
I’m not sure what you mean by the term “propaganda” as regards to pain relief in labor and delivery.
Anywho…certainly the choice of your health care provider(s) is probably one of (if not THE most) important factors (that YOU can control, anyway) in determining how your labor-delivery will go.
It might be worth doing some thinking before hand about your birth preferences…and ensuring that your HCPs are aware of and respect said preferences (barring unforseen circumstances, of course)
I have a feeling this thread has strayed quite a bit from what jarbaby had in mind…sorry jess
For a definition of “propaganda,” see Robinh post. I, too, won’t go into the debate here. My wife took the natural childbirthing classes, and was perfectly happy taking the epidural for both her pregnancies. And I never heard her expressing anything about the wonders of birthing a child. It was exhausting, messy, frightening, and three times was more than enough, thank you very much.
I do agree that you should be educated about all the options and decide for yourself what works.
Now, here’s something to contribute to the OP: one of my jobs during both pregnancies was to rub my wife’s feet and back when needed. It was amazing to watch her feet change during this time, swelling to the point where all the wrinkles were gone. It was like massaging a sponge.
For the first few days after delivery, she was in and out of the bathroom on a regular basis, and within a week or so, they were back to their normal size.
Also of interest–on the subject of swelling feet–mine swelled so big during my last pregnancy that they were afraid of toxemia. But when my water broke during labor they immediately shrank, though not to normal size. It was WEIRD!! And after two days of peeing by the gallon (just TRY to make it to the toidy quickly with an incision running from hip to hip!), they were deflated to their proper size. WHEW!!
My family is sort of notorious for bigheadedkickers.
And best wishes to you all!!!
